FBI demonstrates cybercrime crackdown

Five months after a massive data breach that affected 70 million online gamers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently made several arrests in the Sony PlayStation Network case.

First, authorities said they took 23-year-old Cody Kretsinger into custody in Phoenix on September 22. Kretsinger is an alleged member of the Lulz Security hacking group that was behind the PlayStation Network incident. Also that day, the FBI's San Francisco office announced that it had arrested a local man in connection to attacks by the group Anonymous, and the FBI filed similar charges against another man living in Ohio.

Search warrants were also requested and obtained in New Jersey, Minnesota and Montana, the FBI told FoxNews.com. That capped a successful day in the bureau's attempts to get to the bottom of the incident that rocked Sony and put the global spotlight squarely on Internet security.

"Kretsinger and other co-conspirators are accused of using a hacking technique called a SQL injection to obtain confidential information from Sony's computer systems," Fox News reported.

These and other arrests may help quell concerns that cybercrime has gotten out of control. Hackers have certainly gained their fair share of attention with high-profile incidents involving Sony and other well-known companies. A crackdown by authorities could help brighten the public's opinion of data security.

In August, international authorities scored a victory for data security when the supposed spokesman for LulzSec and Anonymous was arrested off the northern coast of Scotland.

U.K. Law enforcement officials arrested an 18-year-old who is believed to be behind the online "Topiary" handle. Topiary managed a popular Twitter feed that disclosed the latest information on the activities of the hacking group, and the person behind the name regularly gave interviews with media members.

All told, these incidents show that international authorities refuse to allow cybercriminals to run wild on the Internet. Especially in the the U.S., officials are working to better protect Internet users and perhaps even the larger Web infrastructure relied on across the nation.

The FBI is involved heavily in the nation's cybercrime fighting efforts. Currently, according to testimony given before Congress by assistant director Gordon Snow, the organization is investigating 400 corporate account takeovers where hackers infiltrated company networks are are stealing "tens of millions of dollars" from U.S. firms.